Onward

My eye will get better, I am sure.  My friend told me it looked better by the end of the day.  This morning I woke up without any stickiness on my (beautiful) eyelashes.  Perhaps my (very) blue eyes will not be sullied by this infection.  Still, I spent the day in an atypical funk, and I know that it is my responsibility to make the world interesting and fun.  I am, as Horace once said, here to educate and delight. 

I was neither educational nor delightful.  But I pressed on. 

I'm not sure what malaise has befallen me, but I am.  It is inadmissible, I guess. 

In the morning there was the regular coffee from Kenya, then I was fed fresh juice of golden beets, apple, and ginger made in a masticating juicer.  I'm told it is important as the process doesn't harm the enzymes or something.  It was tart and good.  After that, I made a bowl of cereal, a type I bought at the "health food" store, Ezekiel 4:9.  I shit you not.  It says boldly on the box:

"'As described in the Holy Scriptures, 'Take also unto thee Wheat and Barley and Beans and Lentils and Millet and Spelt and put them in one vessel and make bread of it. . . .'"  

"Food For Life Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain crunchy cereals are made from sprouted organic live grains, legumes, and seeds, and contain absolutely no flour."

Oh, the box says much, much more.  When I opened the bag inside the box, the smell was not inviting.  I thought this would be another horrible experiment, but I poured it into a bowl and decided to fairly smother it with honey.  I was wrong.  The stuff was delicious.  My friend agreed.  I made another bowl.  I was still sad, but my belly was happy.  She had made water infused with cucumber and lemons and brought it over in stoppered bottles.  Again, she said, the enzymes.  I was going enzyme crazy. 

We decided to walk to the Farmer's Market.  The walk would do me good, I thought, and she could look for more things to juice.  She had never seen the Country Club College campus, so we strolled across the big open lawns and down to the lake.  When we got back to the house, I got ready for the gym.  Exercise is a good way to deprive the blues of some of the things they need.  And when I got home, my friend had juiced some more, blood oranges.  After my shower I sat in the perfect afternoon air on the deck.  I saw her pour champagne into a very big glass of the reddish orange juice.  We sat and drank and talked and then I was hungry again so we went to a little sushi place I had been told was the best place in town.  It was in a little rich hipster mall, a building that had been divided up into small booths where they served everything from craft beers to freshly baked breads, to lovely cheeses and olives, to barbecue, to. . . sushi.  We found the place, and as promised, there were only six seats at the bar.  The wait was an hour and a half, but wait I couldn't, so I went back to a little barbecue stall where I got some tenderloin tacos.  My friend got some crazy smoothly that turned out to be delicious.  She was happy to find this little hipster mall with its outside gardens and seating.  I wouldn't say I was better, but I was not worse.  I mean, I was not slumped over the table with my head in my hands.  I just wasn't as verbally perceptive as usual. 

Onward. 

I called another friend to see about placing bets on the Kentucky Derby.  He would go by the dog track and place the bets he said.  What did I want?  I picked the favorite, American Pharaoh, but he wouldn't hear of it.  It wouldn't be worth the trip back to the track to pick up the winnings on the favorite, he said.  He was probably right, so I picked two other horses, Ocho Ocho Ocho because it just sounded fast and Carpe Diem for obvious reasons.  He was happier with that. 

It was mid-afternoon now, and a perfect time for nap.  I feel in deep until the phone rang.  It was my buddy.  It was late and we needed to get to the bar to watch the race.  Off the couch and into the bar in five minutes, we were still half asleep when we ordered the first drinks.  I didn't want to start drinking this early, so I ordered a mimosa light on the champagne.  The three of us were at the bar, and my friend's sister was at the track.  Really?  Who goes to the dog races?  But her sister was there and we could still make some bets.  My buddy was hot for it now.  He loves to gamble.  He said we should pick a trifecta.  He had to explain to me what that was, but it seemed easy, really.  Pick four horses.  Three of them must finish one, two, three.  Shit.  This was going to be an easy way to make money.  Really?  Sure.  So we texted the sister to make the bet. 

The line was too long, she said.  She couldn't. 

"We are going to be pissed," I said.  "Our picks are good." 

We needed real drinks before the race began.  Mint juleps.  Yuk.

The horses were out of the gate.  Things were looking good across the board, but then they weren't.  American Pharaoh won.  Instead of something, I had lost money.  My friend, however, was cavalier.  "That would have been a bullshit way to win," he said.  Somehow, though, I wasn't feeling that way. 

After the race, my buddy wanted to go for cocktails at one of the bars on the Boulevard, but I wasn't there yet.  My friend had spent the evening concocting sangria the night before.  It was time to go back and drink it.  I had a stack of wood left over from the winter and unbelievably the night was chilly.  I had nothing to start the fire with, but my buddy said hand sanitizer was the thing.  We stuffed some paper towels in and then I surprised them.  I had 91% alcohol.  "Where'd you get that?"  I had gotten it for a concoction I was making with egg whites and rabbit's glue as a coating for one of my experiments.  To my surprise, they had the alcohol at the grocery store.  I poured some on the fire.

WHOOSH!!!

Jesus, nothing burns like pure alcohol.  It is jet fuel for sure. 

Somehow it turned into the most perfect of fires.  The fire pit was coming into play one more time.  The sangria was good and the night was sweet.  My sadness was still somewhere, still inadmissible, but somehow the day was full.  In retrospect, it was memorable. 

That is what we do, though, right?  We beat on against the stream and don't give in.  Onward.  Always onward.